


we'll live a long life

by from



Category: One Direction (Band)
Genre: Dreams, Friendship/Love, M/M, Sleepwalking, Touring
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-07-01
Updated: 2016-07-01
Packaged: 2018-07-19 12:41:51
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,006
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7361887
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/from/pseuds/from
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Florida, November 2014. Harry always had a plan, even if he didn’t know it. Niall wasn’t sure if Harry should.</p>
            </blockquote>





	we'll live a long life

Niall dreamed of waves scraping his body raw and woke to a clawing at his chest followed by a couple of loud bangs. “What the fuck?” There was a massive thud and something small but hard slapped him in the face before he reached the light switch, the smell of feet wafting by. He sat up, eyes blinking fast.

“Fuck me, that hurt,” came a whine from the floor.

“What’s …” Harry was on the ground tangled up in the sheets, one leg hooked high in the air so his bare bum showed.

Niall averted his eyes, hands flying up to his face when he took in the uncapped Sharpie in his own lap. He rubbed at his forehead and cheeks, looked for ink on his fingers. Nothing. Christ. It’d probably dried and he was going to have to get someone to scrub it all off in the morning before soundcheck. “Did you draw on me again?”

Harry stood up, massaging his shoulder. He at least had the decency to hold up the sheets even if he hadn’t bothered about a) sneaking into people’s rooms to fuck with them and b) putting some clothes on before doing it. “Yeah. No,” he said slowly, almost in a slur.

Niall picked up the marker pen and held it up because Harry, his face puffy, looked as confused as Niall felt. “Then what’s this sharpie for?”

“For the no.”

Maybe Harry was having one of his sleepwalking episodes again. But he would’ve woken up after he’d fallen. 

Niall stretched to put the sharpie on the nightstand. Without the cap, the pen started to roll, picking up speed until it hit the stemmed glass of water he’d taken to bed. 

The crystal took ages to stop ringing. 

“Come here.” When Harry only stood staring, Niall said again, “Harry, come here. Sit down.” 

Harry stepped closer, pulling the sheets along with him. 

Niall drew the crumpled sheets back as they came and scooted in to make room for Harry to sit. 

“You alright?” he asked after they’d sat in silence, tipped close toward each other because of the dip in the bed, for a moment that felt too long.

Harry didn’t reply. He only lifted up his hand and touched Niall’s chest with his fingertips, tracing something, his mouth open like he’d forgotten how he didn’t like showing just his front teeth between his lips. Niall stifled a shiver and looked down. 

_NO_ , it said, off-centre on his chest.

“I think I was sleepwalking,” Harry said. “Dreaming.” His hand dropped down onto the sheets as if it had lost its purchase on Niall’s skin. 

“You think so?” Niall deadpanned, trying to forget the sight of his pebbled nipples and Harry’s fingers too close to them.

Harry sniffled, seeming to hesitate before he asked, “Have you had your surgery yet?”

Niall watched his face, wondered what was going on in that great big head of his, the curls down now, free from the bun he’d been doing it up in. He looked so young. “For what?”

“Your knee.”

“Harry,” Niall looked into his eyes, “that was last year.”

“Yeah. Okay.” Harry chuckled wetly, turning away. “I was definitely dreaming,” he said, wobbling up onto his feet. Niall chased his face in anticipation of all the bits that would be right at eye level. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to. Sorry I woke you up.”

It’s nothing compared to the time Harry had used the extinguisher on Zayn because he’d dreamed Zayn was on fire, but something in his voice made Niall ask, “What’s this ‘NO’ for? In your dream. Or maybe it was a nightmare.”

“Um. I don’t remember,” Harry said.

Niall let the lie pass. The live show had gone all right, but they were a man down for the trip and there was still the taping for the TV special. They needed to keep going, not arguing. 

“There’s clean running shorts in my suitcase,” he said, brushing his palms over the sheets to put the bed back the way it’d been. “Put a pair on before you go.”

“Yeah. Thanks.”

“And get some sleep.” He could hear the rustle of a mess being made in the case and Harry stumbling around to put the shorts on. There was a strange ache in his chest, not quite where the ink was. “Get some sleep, Harry.”

*

He showered after a session on the cross-trainer, his heart still hammering under the _NO_ as he tried to scrub it off and gave up. They were meant to be downstairs in twenty minutes.

With eyes like slits on his face and wrapped in one of his fancy coats, Harry huddled into a car with Liam. Niall got in another. Louis was already at the venue, they said. Niall tried for another shuteye, the porridge sloshing in his gut. When it didn’t work, he asked if they could stop for coffee.

But there was coffee waiting for them there, and Harry gave Niall what looked like his first smile of the day, the one that always looked like a newly hatched chick, sticky around the edges and tumbling crooked off his red lips. Except there was no hair stuck to it today. 

Niall gave him the stirrer from his cappuccino in return and held on to both their coffees while Harry tucked the green stick neatly into his bun, face scrunched in concentration.

“'Morning,” Harry said when he took his cup back.

“Sleep okay?” Niall asked, rubbing his nose with the sleeve of his grey jumper. He had the travel lid on and there’d been no reason to, but it was habit, checking for foam. 

Harry gave him a minute shake of the head. He knew about the foam thing. “Yeah. After.”

Niall wanted to tell him about waking up and seeing the _NO_ like an _ON_ , and if maybe that had been the point. On cue for the musical band, on message for the fans, on always bloody on for the cameras. And all of that split four ways this go round, as if dealing with the new vocals wasn’t already enough work. But he wasn’t sure how much Harry remembered about his dream or how much it would matter if Harry didn’t. “I still don’t know what you were up to,” he finally said. Maybe it was important to Harry. He had to give it a chance if it was. 

“Something stupid, probably,” Harry replied, sniffling. He sounded apologetic again and Niall wanted to tell him to forget about it. They had enough to be worrying about, and even more to be getting on with. “No cameras in the hallway, though. I asked them first thing. And I sent the shorts to the wash. Should be ready tonight.”

Niall smiled at the schoolboy seriousness even though a tiny part of him wanted to tell Harry off for wasting money on getting the hotel to wash his gym shorts. “Very good,” he said, and nodded at Liam, who was waving at them to go over to him and the producers. 

“Did you sleep okay?” Harry asked when they started walking toward the stage, shoulders brushing. “After, I mean.”

“Yeah. Of course,” Niall lied. “’S not like anyone can see it.”

“No,” Harry agreed. Then his face flushed. “They can’t,” he added, and went a step ahead.

*

“Lou just told me the funniest thing,” Liam said, walking into Louis’ dressing room without knocking first. He hovered over the sofa Niall was on, but it was obvious he’d come to tell it to Louis, who had been pissed off with the world for a couple of days by then and was sitting with his elbows out. Even Liam knew enough not to chance a direct hit to the balls.

Niall made vague welcoming noises, choosing to stay out of it.

Louis looked back down at the sports magazine Niall had seen him filch from the Universal Studios rep earlier. “No one’s going to ask you what it is, Liam.” He flipped a page. “But we do sincerely hope you’ll tell us.”

Liam rolled his eyes but took it for what it was. “Lou said that when you go to get one of your legs or hands or whatever amputated, right, they’ll write a big ‘no’ on the one they’re not supposed to get rid of so the surgeon doesn’t cut off the wrong one.”

Through the slow roar in Niall’s ears, Louis was saying, “Imagine how that practice came about.”

Liam fell into the couch as Niall was getting to his feet, numb. 

“Oh fuck. I hadn’t thought of that.” The couch rocked against Niall’s shoes. “Fuck. Can you imagine? Waking up and losing something you were like, counting on to have later? Like, your right leg, if they had to cut off your left one. But then it’s already gone. So when they do it properly, you’ve got no legs.” Niall was already halfway out the door when he heard Liam say, maybe to Louis, maybe to himself, agitated, “Like, no legs at all.”

*

He’d walked down two hallways before he realised he’d left the Segway behind, but he didn’t have to go much further than he had. Lou was in the room they’d set up for her, the air already smelling like product and hot skin.

“Did you tell Harry about that thing with the surgeons writing the ‘no’?”

She looked up, one perfectly drawn eyebrow raised high. “What’s this?”

“Liam said you told him if someone’s going in for amputation, because his left hand needs to go, for instance, they write ‘no’ on the right to make sure that’s not the one the surgeon cuts off.”

“Oh, yeah.” She laughed, taking her blue thinning shears out of her kit bag and putting them on the table, next to the comb and the trimmer. “So creepy when you think about it,” she said, pulling out another pair of scissors.

“Did you tell Harry this?” he asked again.

“Harry? I don’t think so,” she said, and Niall released the door jamb he hadn’t realised he’d been gripping. His hand felt tacky and he told himself to go back to his dressing room, wash up, get his head and everything else sorted. But then the points of her scissors went up, like whenever a thought hit her hard. “That’s right. I couldn’t’ve. I mean, he told _me_.”

*

He’d touched the _NO_ in the shower and known the beat of his own heart there but he’d not given it any thought.

It could be a coincidence. And if it weren’t, no one was liable for the things they did when they were dreaming.

“If they took out my heart, I’d die,” Niall said in the quiet, to the shape of Harry’s back, so broad now after all the boxing. “There’s no getting it back once a heart’s gone.” He breathed out, suddenly feeling a little panicked. He knew all their dressing rooms were the same, but he didn’t like dark places he’d never been in before. On tour, there’d always be a hundred candles lighting up Harry’s. “So don’t worry. They’d know not to do that, the surgeons,” he continued, rocking down to sit on the edge of an armchair. 

Harry rolled over on the sofa. “Niall?” he snuffled. “What time is it? I had my alarm on. Promise.”

“It’s early.” Niall lifted the black coat from where it had slipped down, covered Harry’s shoulder again, flipped the collar up to make more of a blanket with it. There must be real blankets somewhere, but he didn’t want to turn on the lights. “Loads of time left,” he said, and Harry squeezed his hand, nodding off back to sleep.

Ninety four minutes until the show, Niall’s phone told him, and he wasn’t at all ready.

He slipped into the armchair proper and closed his eyes, listened to the quiet breaths and the quieter snoring, to the mindless rustles and the saved heart beating, Harry’s and his, Harry’s and his.

~

**Author's Note:**

> I'm also [on tumblr](https://fromward.tumblr.com/) if you'd like to say hi or talk fic over there. Thanks for reading!


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